


We'll pick our pieces from the rubble

by annathecrow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bobbi Morse (mentioned) - Freeform, Canon Compliant, Emotional Fallout, Gen, Jasper Sitwell (discussed), Jessica Drew (mentioned), One Shot, POV Natasha, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, S.H.I.E.L.D. friendships, and supposed deaths, discussion of canonical deaths, rated higher for profanity, tagging a group of friends is complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 14:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2113017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annathecrow/pseuds/annathecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The bar was a dive. Somehow, it was always a dive. Clint seemed to find them on instinct. Natasha usually hated it, but after a week of courtooms and SI Legal offices, it was almost comforting. That it was just her, Clint and Sharon, though, sitting at the table in the back,  that wasn’t comforting at all."</p>
<p>Clint, Natasha and Sharon, discussing the fall of SHIELD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll pick our pieces from the rubble

“What the fuck. Seriously, what the hell. Seventy years and nobody noticed anything?!” Clint took a swig of his beer, carefully avoiding the sticky surface of the table. The bar was a dive. Somehow, it was always a dive. Clint seemed to find them on instinct. Natasha usually hated it, but after a week of courtooms and SI Legal offices, it was almost comforting. That it was just her, Clint and Sharon, though, sitting at the table in the back, that wasn’t comforting at all.

“We are spies, Clint. We lie. That’s our job,” Natasha told him. She looked at her own beer, but couldn’t make herself drink it. She felt too wired to get drunk - too expecting to have something new and terrible jump out of the shadows.

“That’s not even it,” Sharon said, hunched over her own drink. “How would we tell? Most of them were just like us. They followed their CO, just like we did. They went on the same kind of ops - retrieval, threat elimination, recon. What’s the difference, really? They have another critter in their emblem, that’s it.” Sharon spoke slowly, never looking up from her beer. She looked bad. Part of Natasha wanted to shake her and hiss at her to buckle up and stop moping, but she felt bad for it. SHIELD was Sharon’s - even if she used Agent 13 to distance herself from her legacy, the name Carter was SHIELD. It was at the core of her being, and now she found out that core was rotten, and had been from the very beginning.

“Okay, no, that’s bullshit. We’re nothing like Hydra! We’re not fucking Nazis, for a start.”Clint replied indignantly.

Sharon finally looked up. She frowned. “Come on, you know that’s not what Hydra was these days. Hell, Sitwell was Hydra. Do you think he’d work for them if they were a bunch of white supremacists?”

“What do I know?” Clint gestured. “Not the Sitwell I knew. But that Sitwell wouldn’t work with people who tried to murder thousands of innocent people, either.” He frowned and looked away.

There was a moment of heavy silence.

“What about the others?” Natasha asked.

Clint shrugged. “Nick’s dead. Sitwell was Hydra, now he’s dead. You know where Maria is. Bobbi is somewhere in the Middle East, if she’s still alive after her cover was blown. Jess is Hydra.”

“She isn’t,” Sharon snapped. She shook her head. “She wouldn’t.”

“She worked with Garett.” Natasha pointed out. “She’s either Hydra, or dead.”

“Fuck this shit,” Clint spat out. He wiped at his face with both hands, messing up his already messy hair. “What are we gonna do now?”

“I’m going into CIA,” Sharon said quietly. “Old May pulled a few strings for me, so I won’t have to start as a Probie again. What?” she asked when she noticed Clint staring at her. “I need a job. It’s this, army, or” she twisted her lips in distaste, “the public sector. I’m not going to be a mercenary, not now, not ever.”

Clint raised his hands in silent apology. “No, I get it. Just... CIA?”

Sharon just sighed. “We can’t all be Avengers, Clint.”

He scrunched his nose at that. “Yeah, no. A, I’m not an Avenger. B, there are no Avengers anymore.”

“Actually, Stark wants to put the team back together,” Natasha said evenly.

Clint gave her a disbelieving look.

Natasha just shrugged. “He worked on project Insight. I guess he wants to make sure he controls the biggest players now.”

Sharon looked at them. “You should go for it,” she said, voice serious. “I know you like flying solo, but you won’t have SHIELD money and intel at your back anymore. And the game is changing - it’s not just terrorists, crazy scientists and weird pieces of junk anymore. It’s supersoldiers. It’s aliens. You’ll need all the backup you can get.”

Natasha looked away. Sharon was right, of course. But this people weren’t SHIELD. They would ask for more than a tool, they would ask for a comrade - and Natasha wasn’t sure she was ready to give that.

“Speaking of supersoldiers” she said instead with a sweet smile, “I gave your number to Steve. He call yet?”

Sharon sunk back into her chair, covering her face with both hands. “Oh no... please, no. I can’t deal with that now. I’m not going out with the national icon and the lost love of my favorite great-aunt.”

Suddenly, she went very still. “I haven’t even told her about SHIELD yet,” she admitted in a small voice. “I wanted to, I came the first moment I could, but she wasn’t... she didn’t even recognize me, and I couldn’t...” she took a long, shuddery breath. Her shoulders shook, although it was hard to tell if she was crying.

Natasha curled her hands into fists under the table. She couldn’t do this now. She couldn’t play the stoic one, the emotional crutch, not after all that went down in last few weeks. She barely held herself together, she couldn’t...

And then Clint, of all people, was moving to sit next to Sharon, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

“Come on, Carter, don’t do this, you know I suck at emotional support,” he pleaded, only half-joking.

Natasha took a deep breath and jumped up from her chair. “Alright people, that’s it! We’re going to my Stark-payed hotel room, we’re raiding the minibar, and we’re getting smashed on the expensive alcohol in the name of SHIELD and everything they fucked up in the last seventy years. Sounds good?”

“Hell yes,” Clint replied with feeling. Sharon chuckled wetly, finally lowered her hands from her face and let Clint pull her up. She wiped at her red eyes with a sleeve. “Dibs on the skotch,” she sniffed.

Natasha grinned. “Leave me all the tequilla, and I’m willing to negotiate.”

“Hangover, here I come!” Clint waved his arm towards the exit.

Natasha knew this wasn’t a great idea. The SHIELD therapist would have told her that it will be temporary relief, at best. That they had to face everything that happened, and process it them instead of avoidance. But right now, they needed a break. And the therapist was probably Hydra, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> This was probably written a million times already, but, whatever. Working out my feelings through fic, I suppose. 
> 
> And also, just so we're clear here - the therapist part is intended as in-character sarcasm, and situational at that. I would like to imagine MCU is one of the rare fictional worlds where characters actually use their words and know when to ask for help, proffesional help included. (shhhh let me dream)


End file.
